by Jane Bailey
‘No one much wanted to play with me before long. Only posh girls and boys were welcome here, and they didn’t want to play with the likes of me. Soon, there was hardly anyone come round. Just me on my own. I couldn’t understand it. I was sure my parents knew what they were doing.
‘Then this boy from the post office got a bit sweet on me. Walter, he was. He was a good boy, Walter. He had brown curly hair and bright smiley teeth. He used to whistle when he was out delivering. All sorts of tunes … “If you were the only girl in the world” … “You are my honeysuckle” … always happy, he was. I didn’t realize I was sweet on him too, until Father told him to clear off one day. Just hollered at him like that, for no reason: “And you can clear off!” he says. “Sniffing around my daughter! If you think you’re walking out with her, you’ve got another think coming!” And that wasn’t the worst of it. Then he said – without any say-so from me – without even asking me, he says, “She wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole, our Grace.” And that was it. He hardly dared look me in the eye after that.
‘Then another time there was a dance on the green. Whitsun, it was. We were all dressed up in white – we used to do that then, before the war, dress all in white – white shoes and all. Lovely, it was. They don’t do that now, see. Still, it was one Whitsun – I must’ve been seventeen or so – and we were all dancing, and the young men joined in later – you know, the young men from hereabouts. Well, I was having a whale of a time, as you can imagine. All sorts of dances we did. The Waves of Tory, The Nottingham Swing, and one we always called The Woodside Polka. Probably no different to any other polka, I suppose, but we had a few little extra steps of our own. Anyway, there I was dancing with some lovely gentle boy called Albert. Tall, big brown eyes, really handsome. I’d never had such a good time. Then all of a sudden, up walks my father and breaks us up. The fiddles still going and everything and he just breaks us up. Just like that. Says it’s nine thirty and all respectable girls should be in bed. He practically pushes poor Albert away, and he drags me by the arm. I was that angry. I was fuming, I was.
‘I cried myself to sleep. Now I think of it, I felt a lot like that little tractor in the cupboard in the spare room. And I was like it, really. I wasn’t even allowed to be of use. I couldn’t even make a meal, or do the washing up. See, if I made a pie, Mother was sure to say it was burnt, even if it was only a little bit too brown. And if I defied her advice and made a cake (“Oh, don’t go making a mess in the kitchen,” she’d say), then there’d be something wrong with that, too. If I washed up, I’d always’ve missed a bit on some plate or other, if I tidied up there’d be an inch of dust left on something or other, if I polished shoes I wouldn’t have got the proper shine, if I weeded the garden, I’d’ve left a dandelion likely to “spread a million seeds”.’
And all of it, the burnt cakes, the speck of food on the plate, the undusted surface, the not-shiny-enough shoes, the single remaining dandelion, were all proof of her utter incompetence. Better to leave it all to them. They knew best. She couldn’t begin to compete. And all those tiny mishaps were exaggerated by this special way they had at mealtimes.
‘They’d always start by praising me up, saying how hard I’d tried and everything. Then Father might scratch his neck or sigh or Mother might raise her eyebrows in a hopeful, kindly way, and one of them would say, “It’s lovely, Gracie,” and look at the other one with a little mock smile, “Isn’t it, dear?” and the other one would give the faintest little smirk and say, “Lovely!” And that would be their way of making sure I didn’t go trying it on again. I was not allowed to be useful, because if I was useful I could manage on my own. And if I could manage on my own, I wouldn’t need them any more.
‘Of course, I didn’t see that then. I thought all married couples lived just for their children. I didn’t realize they were supposed to love each other as well. By love I mean, you know, romantic love. I just thought we were a kind of unit, the three of us. Without me, they wouldn’t exist.
‘Well, it’s all right to think that when you’re little, isn’t it? But as I got older I should’ve felt trapped by it, but I just felt frustrated and ungrateful. Ungrateful!
‘And then they did something really terrible.’
She looked into the fire.
‘Really terrible. I didn’t even know how terrible until last week.’
She looked at me.
‘I suppose … I should’ve given that shepherdess to you.’ She gave a deep sigh, but she didn’t tell me what they’d done. ‘Still …’
20
It may have been the last week in August – I can’t quite remember – that we killed the Buckleighs’ dog. It was called Zeus (or ‘Zooss’ as we children used to say). We didn’t know what type of dog it was, but George called it a ‘tartan’ dog, because it always seemed to be dressed in little tartan garments, even in the summer. It was shortish, woollyish, and yapped like something deranged. It was obviously some sort of pedigree, we concluded, because of its extensive wardrobe, and there was nothing we liked more than to get on its very delicate nerves. In many ways this resembled the Mrs Emery game. We did it because the thrill of causing a stir – whether it was a tantrum or a barking fit – reminded us that we had power, that we could affect things. And because this fact took us by surprise – being, as we were, on the cusp of childhood – we needed to be reminded of it as often as possible.
We were playing in the field opposite the Buckleighs’ – me, Mo, Tilly, Spit and George – when Zeus came scampering towards us, yapping. We stopped the death-defying contraption we had made (half see-saw, half evil catapult of torture) and looked at him.
‘Thought they was on holiday,’ said Tilly.
‘That’s what Mr Rollins said,’ said Mo.
‘Woof!’ said George. ‘Grrr …’
‘Must’ve got out over the wall. Here, boy!’
Zeus put his head on one side and considered us. He seemed to be saying that being stuck with Mr Rollins for a week was no party, and that even for a neurotic, mollycoddled dog like himself, playing with us looked more interesting. So George approached cautiously and they sniffed each other, then we put Zeus on our wild see-saw and he really got the hang of it, barking his little head off in glee.
He came to see us for a few days after that, and we always gave him a go, because he seemed to enjoy it so much. We swung him round, we chased him, and let him chase us. George made a den for him and hid in it with him. He was really not a bad little dog when you got to know him, and we were certain he hated his tartan togs as much as we did.
One day things got a bit out of hand. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We had piled up some rocks so that we could jump on the contraption and catapult things into the air. Mo and Tilly and George were collecting ammunition, when Spit and I thought we’d do a height check. We jumped, and the other end of the see-saw flew up magnificently. It would have propelled stones, clods of weed and other ammo wonderfully into our ‘goal’ area, but what none of us had noticed was that Zeus had trotted up quietly (no need to yap at us any more – we were friends) and gone to sit on his usual seat for his usual ride. The first we knew of it was when he flew above our heads, and landed with a mighty thlunk on the grass. He wasn’t dead, because he rolled over and started to yelp, but he had come down right in front of Prince, the carthorse who pulled the milk cart. Prince took exception to the live ammunition, and reared up at the little yapping bomb. It was a terrible sight: Zeus against Prince, deity against royalty. Prince tossed him in the air. With one thud he was down, and completely silent. George rushed over and shooed Prince away. Prince trotted off like a lamb, a little embarrassed at what he had done.
And that was how we killed Zeus. And we realized very quickly that it wasn’t us who would get the blame but Mr Rollins, whose job it had been to tend the gardens and keep an eye on Zeus.
Then we saw Stinker riding home on his bike for dinner. We stopped him and told him everything, and he had a plan which, for Robert Stink
er Mustoe, was a remarkably good one.
We hid Zeus in George’s den until the following evening, when Stinker reliably assured us the Buckleighs were returning home. Then, at dusk, we crept over the Buckleigh wall: Mo, George and me, with Zeus wrapped up in an old blanket. I stayed as lookout by the wall, while the others hid in the yew trees by the side of the driveway. Then Stinker arrived, pedalling fast from the train station to say they were coming. I took up my position with the others. He climbed over the wall, and streaming with sweat, he crouched beside me in the shadows.
‘Give us the dog,’ he hissed. I could see the sweat glistening on his face, and the hot biscuit smell of him enveloped me as he whispered in my ear, ‘This’d better be worth it, Joy Burrows. I’m on’y doin’ it for you!’
We crouched there for an age, our legs buckled and aching, waiting until the sound of a taxi puttered down over the hill. At last the car came to a halt and the taxi driver got out and opened the gates. Stinker was stinking next to me, and breathing very heavily. As the car came in through the gates George started to yap loudly and Stinker hurled the dead dog in front of the car. It hit the bumper and flumped on the ground. The taxi swerved to a halt.
We waited in silence as the taxi driver, followed by members of the Buckleigh family, got out and beheld the deceased dog. Mrs Buckleigh could be heard wailing. Mrs Bubb came running out of the house. Someone told the taxi driver it wasn’t his fault, and it took forever for the whole drama to be played out while we waited in agony. I was certain the dog had yapped beyond the time of death, but George was so emotional he weed in the bushes and some of it sprayed out and hit my dress. I never did find out what Stinker had meant – not for a good few years, anyway.
21
I left school when I was fourteen, along with everyone else in my year. Miss Prosser told my mother I could go to the High School, and Gracie was all for it, despite the fees. But I didn’t want to go. I went to Griffens with her instead, and stayed there five years making dresses and coats and mending trousers. I wanted nothing to change: just me and Gracie, beavering away together, listening to the gossip as people came in, putting the kettle on the little range at the back at mid-morning, going to the pictures with Mo on Saturdays.
As the years went by I almost forgot about Celia. She came to me in dreams sometimes – or rather, her brother came to me. I was often in James’s bedroom and James would walk in and find me there. Then he would take me in his arms and tell me he had been watching me for years and had always loved me. I usually looked far more pretty: hair more like Celia’s, clothes like Betty Grable, and an accent just like I imagined his to be. I was not so foolish as to be unaware that James fulfilled a function for me. In the absence of any romance in Woodside, with my failure to be aroused by the clumping, neolithic clodhoppers that posed as young men, I needed a man to stand in for my burgeoning fantasies. I couldn’t substitute film stars, like Mo and the other girls. I had never understood hero-worship in any of its forms. Mo cutting out a picture and pinning it on the wall or keeping it in her diary seemed senseless to me. Was she ever going to meet Bing Crosby? Was he ever going to get on a boat and a train and a number 38 bus and get off at Woodside and say, ‘Hey, Mo, darling! Let’s go round the world together, honey!’ No, he wasn’t. It was no good dreaming about it, because I could tell her right away it wasn’t going to happen. And she knew it. Yet she still drooled over his films and touched his photographs and practically wet herself when he came on the wireless.
James, however, lived in Buckleigh House – at least, I understood he did. It was highly unlikely that he would ever push me up against a tree and kiss me, but it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility, like Bing. And it was that tiny loophole of possibility that made him so intriguing.
As with all things we long for, sooner or later, if they are remotely within the realms of possibility, we find ourselves giving fate a little helping hand. And so it was that in the summer when I was seventeen, when my fantasies about James had reached a peak of obsession, I found that I walked past Buckleigh House on several occasions for no reason whatsoever, and took furtive sidelong glances through the tall iron gates. I even found myself walking past Celia’s school when I was in town, haplessly imagining that of the hundreds of inmates I might see Celia spill over the pavement in one of the little green-clad gangs.
In the end it was in Cheltenham that I saw her. I had just come out of The Daffodil after seeing King Kong a second time through. Mo had gone after the first showing because she wanted to buy some stockings. I emerged into the glaring light of day and was shielding my eyes on the pavement, when Celia spotted me.
‘Joy! Heavens! It is you!’
‘Celia!’
‘Joy, this is my friend Dee. Were you just in there? What did you think?’
‘Oh … it was lovely.’ I couldn’t take my eyes off them, now that I had adjusted to the light. Celia wore her hair in a curly pageboy, perfectly executed with tortoiseshell side clips. Her friend had the same hairstyle, and they both wore hats with matching clutch bags, and bright red lipstick which made Celia look about twenty-five.
People were jostling past us, and there was an awkwardness in the air. It had something to do with the way Celia’s friend was eyeing me with a fixed smile, as though I were a specimen she hadn’t come across before, and something to do with the way Celia and I had left things between us so many years before.
‘How’s … your family?’
Celia, who had been standing by the kerb, dodged a passing bicycle and grabbed me by the elbow. ‘Oh … gosh, they’re fine. Hey, look – it’s so good to see you—’ She beamed suddenly over my shoulder, and I became aware that two young men had joined us: they were clearly with Celia and her friend.
‘Simon, Henry, this is my old friend Joy.’
Both men shook my hand courteously, and one kissed it and did a little bow. ‘And is the lovely Joy accompanying us tonight?’
I coloured and looked down at the pavement uncomfortably. Before I could think what to do, Celia said, ‘Oh, that’s a smashing idea. Hey, Joy, what are you up to tonight?’
‘Well … nothing … I—’
‘How do you fancy coming to a party?’
‘Well, I …’ It all seemed so easy for them, making arrangements at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t just go to a party. What would I say to Gracie? What would I wear? How on earth would I get there and back? ‘I don’t think so … I’d better not, look—’
‘I’m sure we could find a nice young man to take you,’ said Henry or Simon, winking. ‘Bertie’s not seeing anyone, is he, Dee? He’s got a car.’
‘Or Maurice! Yes …’ Dee started to giggle. ‘Oh, dear … Maurice! Just imagine! Oh, yes, Celia: Maurice!’
I felt like a ping-pong ball being batted to and fro. I couldn’t imagine for a moment that these people would want to make fun of me, but there was something in their manner that made me wary. I drew my cardigan closely around me.
‘Look, it’s very kind, Celia. But I really don’t think—’
‘I’ve got it! James! You always did like James, didn’t you? And he’d be crazy about you if he could see you now!’ She was all teeth beneath her crimson lipstick. So pleased was she with her decision that she actually clapped her hands together decisively. ‘Right! That’s it. James and Joy. It’ll have to be next Saturday. Let’s not stand on the pavement any more. Who’s for tea at The Queen’s?’
I made my excuses – said I had to meet Mo at the bus station. But Celia wouldn’t let me go without an assurance that I would come to Buckleigh House at seven thirty on Saturday evening.
I walked to the bus station with wings on my heels, but also with a sly foreboding.
Celia came to the dress shop on Wednesday afternoon to take me off for tea. Gracie looked up from her machine in astonishment, and when she turned her eyes on me they were full of curiosity and fear. I wished Celia hadn’t turned up like this. She couldn’t have forgotten that I wasn’t supposed
to play with her in the past. Or did she think it was all water under the bridge, now that we were grown up? Evidently so, for she beamed at Gracie, and even let slip the bombshell of Saturday night’s plans. To my shame, I hoped Celia wouldn’t notice Gracie’s old pinny with its mismatching buttons and the blackberry stain that wouldn’t wash out. I hoped she wouldn’t see the thick fawn stockings rolled down to the knees for comfort. I wished Gracie would look less awestruck at Celia’s clothes, and I hoped and prayed that she wouldn’t open her mouth and breathe a single, burry Gloucestershire word.
‘You don’t mind if I take Joy out now for some buns, do you, Miss Burrows? I know a lovely little place in Painswick.’
‘Oh … well … no – of course not.’
I knew Gracie was doing a shepherd’s pie for tea: she had bought the meat from the delivery van that morning. But somehow we were both powerless before the easy confidence of Celia Buckleigh.
‘Jolly good. I’ll be borrowing her again on Saturday night – you won’t mind that, will you? Might be a bit late back.’
Gracie looked dumbfounded. I couldn’t meet her eyes because I didn’t want to see the hurt there might be there. Gracie and I shared almost everything, our own giant secret like a pod we nestled in together.
‘I wasn’t expecting …’ I said, going to fetch my coat. Celia was already ahead of me. I folded it over my arm and peeped back in the workroom. ‘Cheerio, then, Gracie … you don’t mind, do you?’
She looked up and smiled, and there wasn’t a trace of hurt in it – ‘Don’t be daft. Have a good time!’ – only fear.
Celia took me to an intimate teashop with lace tablecloths and bought us a pot of tea and fancies as though she knew the menu by heart. I fiddled with the sugar lumps and she jokingly slapped my hand.